Originally Posted by
UA-NYC
Hyatt right now is the same size as Starwood pre-merger. Quite the easy choice if you don’t need 5,000 roadside limited service hotels and general crappy service at your fingertips.
Same size if you include SLH (design hotels had 287 in SPG days). But SLH bookings through WOH are pretty bad IMO, especially if your goal is to drop Marriott for elite benefits.
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Hyatt is fine for what it is but, at least for my travel, doesn’t hold a candle to SPG’s portfolio. It’s hard for me to tell which SPG branded hotels are legacy and which are new but almost 75% of my Bonvoy stays are with SPG brands. Best example: south Florida. What Hyatt options are people choosing there? I had so much fun hotel hopping from Bal Harbour to Brickell to South beach and finally to Coconut Grove to chill. For me, this loyalty status convo is largely about the US. Unfortunately, Hyatt is just not competitive in major US markets (NYC, Miami/South Florida, Boston, San Francisco, etc). With my travel patterns, Marriott is unavoidable. I hate the program and love the hotels. At least I’m earning some extra points back on each stay. In this way, I guess I’m a captive elite (like an Atlanta Delta “loyalist”).
In Asia and the Middle East, the difference IME is negligible. May friend checked into the Abu Dhabi EDITION for me without any status and got a suite upgrade during EID.
Not sure about Europe. Hopefully other ppl can fill in there.
I just don’t understand why anyone would choose Hilton over Marriott. At least IHG has Six Senses and the super small Regent portfolio. Hilton has like 20 hotels in its entire portfolio that I find moderately compelling. A chain with 6000+ properties has… 2 Forbes 5 star hotels (to be fair it should be 4 IMO). Nah, I’ll pass.
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Also, can I be honest? I think people REALLY overhype the difference in elite treatment between Hyatt Globalist and Marriott Titanium/Ambassador. I chased Globalist based off of what people said here and on Reddit and came in with huge expectations. At the end of the day, the most compelling benefits in the Hyatt program for me are the waived resort fees, the suite upgrade instruments, and the easy points for business owners. I don’t find Hyatt elite treatment to be particularly special compared to Marriott, Hilton, or even IHG. Maybe it’s better on average but it’s not the huge step up I thought it would be (my fault for the unreasonable expectations). It is what it is. That’s just IME.